Order Affinity was introduced to the game for a specific reason. It is intended to make it (far) less appealing to deal with Gods in other organizations than the one in your own; there have been many occurrences of things throughout Lusternia's history that has made such a thing good for Lusternia as a whole. Sending 'invasions' of one's Priests into another organization to try to sway them to worship you, while it might be exciting roleplay for a time, is not necessarily positive for the playerbase at large.

However, the current implementation leaves something to be desired. It seems to focus, hard, on specific individuals while leaving everyone else unaffected... which leaves nothing but bad tastes and bad feelings behind when someone considers it.

For example, let's say Joe is a Magnagoran, and he offers to Hoaracle. His offerings are not affected in any way. Mike, however, is a member of Hoaracle's order, so his offerings are halved. They are both Magnagoran, they both should have the same disincentive to deal with Gods outside of their own organization, but only one is being 'punished'.

I feel that it is possible to tweak Order Affinity in such a way as to make it affect everyone equally, to offer everyone the same incentives to stay close to home with some positive effects as well as negative ones.

Changes would consist of:
1) Offering to any God not aligned with your organization reduces offering value by 25%.
- Note that this would occur whether or not you are in their order; a 25% loss is still punitive while not being draconian.
2) Being in the order of a God for whom your organization is not aligned still causes the "distance" essence loss, unchanged from how it currently works. (Edit: This isn't actually a change, just pointing out that it will still happen)
3) Offering to any God aligned with your organization increases offering value by 10%.
- This is to make up for reducing some of the essence gained by offerings from people of other organizations; the bulk of offerings will be coming internally, so a smaller bonus should more than cover what is lost from the first change.
- As an addition, it could be made so that if you are in an Order which is not aligned with your organization, offering to Gods from your own org do not get this bonus and / or have the 25% penalty from step 1.

This changes it from a system of penalties only to a system of both negatives (which are not as draconian) and incentives (you get a positive for sticking to your own Gods, and can help keep them happier). You make it so that it is a system which affects everyone equally instead of singling out individuals. You do so without a massive overhaul of either the system (only 2 actual changes), or the design (which is not only left intact but also enhanced).

I will bring this up with the other Administrators - feel free to continue discussion.

(p.s., I modified the thread's name. It felt necessary.)

Thank you! :)

I honestly believe that the essence from devotion could be raised, or what scaled based on your powers/rank/whatever the same way it takes in account for distance loss. While it makes sense the higher in the order you are, the more you cost the order for not being in the org. I feel if the higher you are in an order, the more you gain would give incentive to people doing more in the orders. (As opposed to the current system where the OH and a rank 1 person give the same very low amount).

Ayisdra:

I honestly believe that the essence from devotion could be raised, or what scaled based on your powers/rank/whatever the same way it takes in account for distance loss. While it makes sense the higher in the order you are, the more you cost the order for not being in the org. I feel if the higher you are in an order, the more you gain would give incentive to people doing more in the orders. (As opposed to the current system where the OH and a rank 1 person give the same very low amount).

At the same time, Gods tend to have a lot of people in the Order who are in their org, so they do generate quite a bit of passive essence from that. I think it would quickly become over-the-top if it was passive essence in large numbers, on top of the offerings that can be generated and provided.

If they want to consider it, great, then by all means; it's just not an integral part of the changes I envision to make Affinity something more palatable. I sure wouldn't mind generating a whole lot more essence without doing any work though. ^_^

Iosai, I hope you're happy.

There is now a clan discussion that is very gleefully re-enacting a musical, the topic of which was based on your thread title change.

Xenthos:

At the same time, Gods tend to have a lot of people in the Order who are in their org, so they do generate quite a bit of passive essence from that. I think it would quickly become over-the-top if it was passive essence in large numbers, on top of the offerings that can be generated and provided.

If they want to consider it, great, then by all means; it's just not an integral part of the changes I envision to make Affinity something more palatable. I sure wouldn't mind generating a whole lot more essence without doing any work though. ^_^

I would even be fine with it as an order priv (bestowed by the God only even), if that is possible.

Xenthos:

Iosai, I hope you're happy.

There is now a clan discussion that is very gleefully re-enacting a musical, the topic of which was based on your thread title change.

I am, indeed, very happy. I am about to (re-)watch said musical.

Mnnnn... how about just cutting out the Offering quatering/halving/slice and dicing altogether, the drain would still be there..and I think Eventru mentioned somewhere in the artifacts thread that it's specifically coded to make it impossible to keep up with the drain. So why the double/triple whammy? Also, does affinity currently affect the esteem gained from one's own guardian denizens? I remember someone who was in affinity mentioning that they got 560 esteem after a full round, and Orv who's currently artied to the teeth with god/influencing things only got 250ish from a full round. Drain ok, halved offerings ok (dealing and semi accepting both because she loves Hoaracle, but still feeling guilty) but reduced guardian essence too with divine mark? Blarg.

Hmm. I'm not generally a fan of increasing passive gains, for the above reasons.

How about this:
-If you are a member of an order not aligned with your faction, you lose the 10% bonus on faction offerings and the penalty on offering to your foreign god is reduced by that 10%, to a 15% penalty. You lose a big chunk of patriotic offering power (three 10% bonuses in the Magnagoran example) for a single benefit, that still leaves you behind.

As you said, it's weird that currently people who are in the order are punished more then those are not, when it should be the other way around.

Because someone has to be that guy: order affinity is terrible, and will always be a terrible idea.

I'd rather keep the current offering levels for people in the same organisation. I actually hold the unpopular opinion that while affinity does suck for those who are in a different org, it doesn't suck that much. Taking Orventa as an example, she is currently draining 30k a day (I am aware this can go even higher, but I think it is fair that if you get closer to becoming the OH you drain more). That means she would need to offer 60k a day. For many people these days, that isn't actually that hard to do. I'm no hardcore basher and I have offered over 2 million in the last three days, with a lot of my time being productive spent influencing for banked esteem as well. I'm aware this may be slightly harder for people who haven't invested as much time into getting their levels up, but what isn't these days?

At the end of the day, I feel most, if not all, of the gods will be happy to keep these people who are draining their essence around, because that is just a number in the system. What's more important is the contribution the person makes to the Order.

The only change of the ones Xenthos suggested I feel is needed is part of the first one, where all offerings from outside the org are worth 50%. If you really must change more, I'd say leave 50% for people not in the order and offering from another org and increasing that to a 60% or something or people who are in the order and offering from another org, as well as the current passive drains.

@Orventa: It's okay! I heard Hoaracle only kept the rest of us around so we made up for your drains. <_<

I don't foresee affinity being reduced in functionality (-50% offerings, drain). I don't really have an opinion on non-aligned people and their offerings being affected at the moment.

We probably aren't closed to suggestions for offering more rewards on the pro-affinity side, but I personally think they should be confined to a person-order-god relationship (ie I don't think I like the idea of Eventru receiving a +10% offering bonus from Terentians or generic Celestians).

I really don't think people would generally be happy if we just said, "Hokay, if the god isn't in your pantheon, -50% offerings" though. Seems like more penalties.

(And godrealm mob empowering is not affected by affinity.)

Eventru:

(And godrealm mob empowering is not affected by affinity.)

I am 99.99% sure that it is, intended or not.

Eventru:

I really don't think people would generally be happy if we just said, "Hokay, if the god isn't in your pantheon, -50% offerings" though. Seems like more penalties.

...but people are generally happy being told, "Hokay, your chosen god isn't in your city's pantheon, -50% offerings"?

I am rather fond of affinity in theory (if not fully in practice), but it doesn't make a lot of sense to punish people who are actually devoting themselves to their god because of org affiliation while people with similar conflicting org affiliation with absolutely no relation to the god are able to provide full offerings. Offering maluses for non-order, non-org members evens this disparity out, while still having the extra penalty on top for the order members in the form of the essence drains.

rika:


I am 99.99% sure that it is, intended or not.

It was, once, but we fixed it about a week ago.

Ah, that'd be why!

Eventru:


I really don't think people would generally be happy if we just said, "Hokay, if the god isn't in your pantheon, -50% offerings" though. Seems like more penalties.

The thing is that by being a devoted member of the order, you actually offer for less then your city/communemates that aren't a member of that order, which is decidedly wonky.

Ytran:

...but people are generally happy being told, "Hokay, your chosen god isn't in your city's pantheon, -50% offerings"?

I am rather fond of affinity in theory (if not fully in practice), but it doesn't make a lot of sense to punish people who are actually devoting themselves to their god because of org affiliation while people with similar conflicting org affiliation with absolutely no relation to the god are able to provide full offerings. Offering maluses for non-order, non-org members evens this disparity out, while still having the extra penalty on top for the order members in the form of the essence drains.

I'm pretty ambivalent about the penalty for non-org-aligned people, I'm just not sure it would add anything - only make things more laden with penalties. Order Affinity is always such a sore subject I'm rather of the opinion of not touching it at all, than doing anything. And if doing anything, I feel like we'd just get more complaints about an already unpopular (but necessary) feature.

Affinity was added for a pretty singular purpose - to discourage people in unaligned orgs from being in an order. Not to disallow it altogether (else we'd've just gone that route), but to ensure we did not again face an issue like Glomdoring once had. One or two people, fine - but when we're talking a dozen or more, things become more than problematic for a god (our essence supplies are not limitless!).

Originally godrealm mobs were spared the affinity drain, but when someone did some code streamlining they accidentally lost that protection. It was discovered fairly recently and it's been set back to its proper place.

For non-order people in outside orgs, they probably won't even care if their offerings got nerfed, but for those who are in the order, it will feel better for them because then the only other disadvantage they have would be the passive drain.